Searching for the divine on a Sunday morning

I realized that, in the quiet moments, I often find myself searching for the divine around me. Not evidence of a god, but for those simple and fleeting moments of perfection which are always there but are hard to see unless I stop, look, listen, and just open myself up to them.

I’m up early this Sunday morning, sitting in on my balcony with a cup of black tea, soaking in the scents of my wife’s garden – mint, basil, the floral fragrance of damp earth – and I decided to listen to something from NPR’s First Listen.

This morning, it’s Owen Pallet’s new release, “In Conflict”. A bit surreal it also takes in a heavy touch of 80’s synth pop. But, with Brian Eno having a hand in the production, how could it not? And the sound fits in well with a lot of the newer indie pop I’ve heard.

Copyright 2014 by Trevor Wilson. All rights reserved.

On its own, a nice listen for bird watching before breakfast.

The divine moment came – fleeting but feeling as profound as always – when my ears began to pick out sounds from the world around me in time to the music.

A train horn as it moved along the strait. A bird call. Another bird call. The static hiss of the Benicia bridge traffic.

And, in that moment, I felt like I was piercing a veil beyond which things move wholly in union for some indeterminate purpose.

It didn’t take long to end and come back to the rel world of stresses and worries, but it was still wonderful for an instant and will help fuel me until the next glimpse beyond.